


Lawrie Alone.

by Jackmerlin



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:36:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackmerlin/pseuds/Jackmerlin
Summary: Lawrie has no-one to talk to and nothing to do ....Set during the half-term after Run Away Home. The time period is vaguely mid-to-late Marlow period.





	Lawrie Alone.

Lawrie, sprawled on her bed, was bored. Bored beyond bored. Lying prone on her bed, listening to her transistor radio, was infinitely appealing when she was actually _supposed_ to be doing something useful; today, with no other choice, it was infinitely boring. Heavily, she rose to her feet, and stomped around the bedroom. She picked up and put back down, in swift succession, her library book, her notepad, a school book containing half-finished holiday homework and a shirt missing a button that she was supposed to be mending.  
This was turning out to be the scuzziest half-term _ever_ , she thought, disconsolate. Nicola had been out all day with Patrick. Peter, holed up in the Shippen, had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want company. Ann was working through a pile of ironing. Rowan, remembering the last time that Lawrie had ‘helped’ her on the farm, causing a driven flock of sheep to scatter by not having the right gate open at the right time, had indicated that her assistance this afternoon would be both unnecessary and unwelcome. And Ginty was gone, somewhere in deepest, darkest Ireland, looking after horses, and probably having more fun at this precise moment in time than Lawrence S Marlow.  
The rain had been incessant. She could have ridden the Idiot, but hadn’t fancied a ride that would be both wet and lonely. Patrick and Nicola couldn’t be out hawking in this - goodness knows what they could be doing - and then, checking herself, she thought, don’t be stupid Lawrie, you _know_ what they’re doing.  
Midway through her restless prowl, she caught at the knob of the wardrobe door and waggled it crossly; already loose, it came off in her hand. Damn. More in hope than expectation, she tried fitting it back on. It screwed back in place but was decidedly wobbly. Possibly Nicola would be the next person to yank the door open, she thought hopefully, and then it could be _her_ fault that it was broken.  
She glanced idly at the boring familiar clothes. People in stories had wardrobes full of fur-coats, not just the next lot of sisterly cast-offs. At the furthest end of the rail a pale glimmer caught her eye, and she reached in to stroke the creamy silk. The dress that Miranda gave Nicola.  
It was all that blasted dress’s fault. If Nicola hadn’t gone to the Merricks’ party looking like Ginty, Patrick wouldn’t have latched onto her again, demanding her attention all day, every day. Then they could all of them have carried on doing stuff together.  
She teased at the pleated material of the skirt, fretfully at first, then liking the silky feel of it falling over her hand and wrist. She lifted the hanger and dress out of the wardrobe, and held it experimentally against herself.  
If the dress had made Nick look super-fab, then it stood to reason that it would have the same effect on her. Wouldn’t it?  
They only had a small oval mirror above their chest of drawers. Lawrie twisted and wriggled in front of it, trying to get a good view of the dress with her face above it. It wasn’t much good - maybe the bathroom mirror would do ….  
She hesitated as the idea formed itself, unbidden.  
In the ordinary way of things, she and Nicola borrowed each others clothes without even asking. If for some reason, one of them had run out of clean socks or needed a clean shirt, they raided each other’s drawers without compunction. But a party dress - especially one given as a present - was different. Reluctantly Lawrie hung the dress back in the wardrobe.

The poor _dress_ though. It _ought_ to be allowed out. It had been made to be danced with. It was born to go to parties. It was meant to make its wearer feel pretty. It _was_ pretty, it wanted to be looked at, admired. And yet it had to be shut away in the back of a musty, old cupboard, next to a moth-eaten hacking jacket and Sixth-Form uniform waiting to be grown into. Nicola had only worn it once ….  
It was almost absently, as if she wasn’t really planning to do it, that she went to her make-up box. Expertly, because she’d practised this often, she applied a toned down version of the look that had temporarily charmed Rigid and his friends.  
Her face done, she frowned at her reflection. Her hair wasn’t satisfactory, just flopping there doing nothing. She padded along to the bathroom, and splashed handfuls of water over it until it was wet enough to blow-dry. She and Nicola shared a rickety old hairdryer; it was fairly useless but she did her best to create a bit of a wave.  
Examining face and hair critically, she decided they were the best she could do. Jumper, T-shirt, jeans discarded; past hesitation now, she lifted the dress off its hanger and gathered up all the lovely, soft material. It slid over shoulders and hips like a caress. She thrilled with pleasure, the feel of it glorious against her skin.  
There was a full-length mirror in her parents’ room. She trod barefoot along the corridor, enjoying the swishy feel of the dress brushing against her legs.  
Of course it would be better with heels. There were some old party shoes in the bottom of her mother’s wardrobe. She rummaged, found a pair of cream kitten heels. Finally she stood in front of the mirror in all her finished glory, and gave herself a long, appreciative look up and down.  
The girl looking back at her from the mirror was both her and not-her. It was her as she imagined herself in the secret comfort of her bedtime reveries; inspiring devoted and obsessive passion from her leading men, so that Richard Burton forgot all about Elizabeth Taylor and fell helplessly at her feet.  
“What are you d- _Lawrie!_ ” Her mother’s voice was sharp in the doorway. Reality resumed with a thud. Richard Burton scurried away to marry Liz Taylor again.  
“What on earth are you doing?”  
Aware of something in her mother’s expression that she would have to think about later, Lawrie hurriedly answered, “ _Nothing!_ Well, just dressing up…”  
Pam frowned. “What’s that dress? It’s not from The Chest.”  
“It’s Nick’s.”  
“I’ve never seen this before. You two haven’t been going back to that dreadful shop, have you?”  
“Of _course_ not! It’s been shut down anyway, what with all the druggy stuff,” Lawrie answered with private relish.( Nicola had not been amused by Lawrie’s suggestion that if _she_ had been the one to find Changear, she would have known at _once_ that it was a Drug Den, what with all her experience of foiling drug smugglers.) “It’s the one Miranda gave her.”  
“Miranda? At school? Another child gave her this?” her mother snapped, unamused, and too late, Lawrie realised she’d dropped Nicola in it.  
Pam ran her finger expertly round the neckline of the dress, looking for a label. “But this must have hugely expensive! Nicola should never have accepted this! We’ll have to send it back to the child’s mother…”  
“ _No!_ You couldn’t - not after all this time anyway - it would be weird ..”  
“What do you mean, after all this time?” Pam asked in a quick, expressionless voice, torn between wanting the truth and not wanting to criticise Nicola in front of Lawrie.  
“It was at Christmas. You weren’t even here to tell!”  
Pam’s expression turned from ordinary motherly irritation to something tighter; the lines around her brows and mouth deepening in a still, set anger. Lawrie hadn’t realised that the mention of Christmas, with the memory of the partial truth that they’d confessed to, still had that effect on her mother. That Giles and Peter taking the dinghy out for a ‘jolly’ in mid-winter and Rowan not thinking to stop them should have ended up with the boat wrecked and the boys so stupidly and nearly drowned, could still make her mother twitch and turn away.  
(Why can’t we explain about _Edward_ , Lawrie had asked Rowan, thinking that would make everything clear, and been disproportionately upset when Rowan had turned on her, snarling, surely it’s _obvious?)_  
After a moment, her mother said calmly, “I see. I’ll discuss it with Nicola tonight. Now I suggest you go and take it off before you spill something on it. Whoever it rightfully belongs to, it’s not yours to wear. And take that muck off your face while your at it.”

It was only once she was back in jeans and jumper that Lawrie let herself give that moment in front of the mirror the attention she thought it deserved. Her mother’s face - astonished, exasperated, impatient - all those usual familiar things, yes, but more than that - there’d been a surprised flicker in her eyes of something else. _Pleasure._ Admiration. She’d been struck - and struck in a _good_ way - by Lawrie’s appearance.  
If she could make people look at her that way, it made all sorts of difference. There were parts she might be able to play that she’d never even considered before. Slowly, thoughtfully, she knelt in front of her Shakespeare shelf, where she kept the slowly growing collection of separate plays that Nicola was swapping for her Folio. It was with the oddest sensation of daring that she finally drew out Romeo and Juliet, and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, began to read.

Nicola returned only just in time for dinner, hastily washing her hands and face in the downstairs toilet as the plates went in, so Lawrie didn’t have time to forewarn her. As it was, she took the news that Lawrie had been trying on the dress with relative equanimity.  
Her mother’s temper had had time to turn in the intervening hours, and her interrogation of Nicola was mild. Nicola kept her responses calm and reasonable, and eventually Pam agreed, that given the time that had elapsed, and the potential trouble that returning the dress might cause to the West’s au pair, it might be best to let sleeping dresses lie.  
Lawrie heaved a silent sigh of relief. Afterwards, while she and Nicola were taking their turn at clearing the table, she made an embarrassed attempt at apology.  
“Not to worry,” said Nicola, cheerfully. “Mum was going to have to know before I ever wore it again. You wash if you like, I’ll dry.”  
They both hated drying the dishes, much preferring the messy business of sloshing suds around the sink. Lawrie felt gloom descend once again. Nick was in a ridiculously good humour. Which must mean that everything was going _terrifically_ well with Patrick - too well, judging by her current mood; and that could only mean that Lawrie really wasn’t going to have _any_ company at all this holiday.


End file.
